Hundreds of thousands of people are left without power this weekend after hurricane ‘Fiona’ ripped through Canada’s eastern coast. The storm was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm on Friday.
Three provinces experienced torrential downpours, extreme flooding, and winds up to 99 mph, as homes and buildings were washed into the sea. Officials haven’t shared reports of injuries or fatalities.
Severe hurricanes like Fiona are uncommon in Canada, as most hurricanes lose their energy in colder waters in the north and become post-tropical. Pressure in the region is predicted to be historically low, making way for Fiona to tear through the eastern coast.
But the storm didn’t hit Canada first. Fiona made landfall as a category 3 hurricane first in Puerto Rico, and then the Dominican Republic, causing catastrophic damage. On September 21st, Hurricane Fiona was classified as a category 4 hurricane.
Nova Scotia was last hit by a tropical cyclone in 2003 with Hurricane Juan, a category 2 storm that killed two people and heavily damaged vegetation and buildings.
At least four reported deaths have been attributed to Fiona: two in the Dominican Republic and one each in Guadeloupe and Puerto Rico, where the storm hit early last Saturday.
Forecasters were also monitoring other weather systems in the Atlantic on Saturday, including Tropical Storm Ian, which could become a powerful hurricane that would threaten parts of Florida later this week.
This year’s Atlantic hurricane season runs from June to November, and it had a pretty quiet start. Only 3 storms were named from June to September and none during August, for the first time since 1997.
The link between climate change and hurricanes has become more clear as time passes. Data has shown that hurricanes have become stronger over the last four decades. A warming planet can expect much stronger hurricanes, and a higher incidence of the most powerful storms.